‘Not going through the front door. But they’re not going through the front door, not with a bleeding cop in the back seat.’

Deacon nods slowly. Some of her gusto has drained away. Maybe the truth of this situation is dawning on her, i.e. she’s chasing a wounded officer into a fortified club with only a murder suspect for backup. The uncomplicated days of being a detective must seem like a rosy dream.

‘Okay, so we go around back.’

‘We? I really think now is the time for you to call the cavalry. Faber will soon have a dying cop in there, if he hasn’t got one already. Nobody will believe a word he says. With any luck, he’ll get himself killed during the raid.’

Deacon pouts stubbornly. ‘No. The first thing Faber will do when he hears a siren is put the final nail in Goran’s coffin. And when I say nail I mean bullet and when I say coffin I mean head. I need to wrap this up myself.’

‘Be my guest.’

‘I thought you had a stake in this. Didn’t this asshole kill your girlfriend?’

This is true, and I had pushed it to the back of my mind, but even a reference to Connie sets my blood boiling.

‘Okay. We go around back. But let me have the shotgun.’

‘Not happening.’

I hold up the little Cobra .32. ‘I am not entering a building with this toy. I can barely get my finger through the trigger guard.’

We glare at each other like kids with trading cards until Deacon makes an offer.

‘I’ve got a blade.’

‘Good for you. Why don’t you throw it at the men with guns?’

‘I’ll take the Cobra and the pump. You take my Smith and Wesson.’

‘Any clips?’

‘Two on the holster.’

This is not a bad deal. ‘What about the blade? You going to use it?’

Deacon rolls her eyes, pulling an ivory-handled flick knife from its home behind the sun visor.

‘Anything else, McEvoy? You want my brassiere too?’

I mull this over. ‘What size are the cups?’

There’s only one obvious way around back, and that’s down the same alley where Deacon put half a dozen bullets into her partner. Ronelle moves quickly, keeping her eyes off the crushed bum-shack, picking her way through the black pennies of blood.

Then she changes her strategy, returns to the shack, pulls her gun and acts out the shooting again in total silence.

‘I’m dealing with it,’ she explains grudgingly, due to the fact that I’m looking over her shoulder. ‘By doing it again I dilute the act, making it less powerful.’

‘Ah,’ I say. ‘Freud?’

‘John Wayne Gacy.’

I must look shocked, because Deacon half grins. ‘Kidding. Dr Phil.’

‘Okay. That’s much better. I bet you wish you were diluting the act with shoes on.’

Deacon nods. ‘Dr Phil didn’t mention that.’